The US Bought Another Of These 'Unreliable' $1.5-Billion Ships

Able to carry 800 Marines and their gear anyplace they need to go — the San Antonio Class Amphibious Transport Dock is vital for projecting U.S. forces abroad: but they don't come cheap.

The newest vessel will cost American taxpayers about $1.5 billion and is designed to be the the most survivable amphibious assault ship ever designed.

While the Defense Department's director of evaluations doesn't agree, and thinks the ship's critical systems aren't reliable, and the ship will crumble against an attack — it didn't stop the Pentagon from purchasing one more — last week.

1. our biggest enemies are within nt

2. Marcus Tullius Cicero

“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague.”

10. The reason for that is the Air Force.

The reason for that is the Air Force. I remember they wanted a thousand mile range on the return trajectory. So, they redesigned the shuttle and then the Air Force basically bailed and they were stuck with the delta wind design. That wasn't the only thing the Air Force wanted and got either.

Yes, the shuttle never realized a profit which they thought it would with a ridiculous launch schedule that they never could achieve. I think the average was $200 million per launch and the most they got back was $100 million. After the Challenger accident, it came out that for each shuttle flight, they had to cannibalize parts from another shuttle. When one would land, Nasa would send a team to scavenge the parts they needed.

I've never understood why the shuttle's altitude was only low Earth orbit. The SRBs are stack-able, couldn't they have added more segments as well as a bigger main fuel tank?